by Parker Bilal
THE
GOLDEN
SCALES
PARKER BILAL
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
Lewis Carroll
Let the caller and the called disappear;
Be lost in the call
Jalal al-Din Rumi
Contents
Prologue
Part 1
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part 2
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Part 3
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
A Note on the Author
By the Same Author
Prologue
Cairo, 1981
The bright light struck her full in the eyes and for an instant she was blinded, as if struck by some ancient curse. Liz Markham reared back, completely stalled by the human mass that confronted her. Her heart racing, she began to run. Her child was somewhere out there, lost in this madness.
She stumbled. Behind her she heard someone make a remark that she couldn’t understand. Several other people laughed. Darting away from the eyes that seemed fixed on her, closing in from every angle, she ran on. Glancing back, certain that someone was behind her, she moved away from the hotel, pushing impatiently through the crowd of tourists and tea boys, pushing at everything, knocking over tables, sending glasses and trays flying, hearing cries of astonishment and curses. But she didn’t care. All she cared about at this moment was Alice.
Where had it all gone wrong? Her life, this trip? Everything that had happened since she had arrived in Cairo had turned out differently from the way she had expected. From the moment she’d stepped off the plane and been hit by the oppressive heat, the clothes instantly sticking to her back. It was supposed to be the end of September, for Christ’s sake, and it felt like the middle of July in sunny Spain. It had seemed such a good idea at the time: get away from London, with all its weary habits and old accomplices. A chance to get clean, to start a new life. But what did she know about him, really? When she first met Alice’s father he was just another of those listless young men hanging round the bazaar shops selling trinkets, or so it seemed. He and his friend had trailed behind them, her and Sylvia, calling out to them. It was irritating at first, and then it became a game, a challenge. Sylvia was always up for a challenge. And where was she now? Gone. Swept away in the urgent blue clamour of an ambulance that led to the dead end of a cold, impersonal corridor in the Accident and Emergency unit. Liz knew she didn’t want to end like that.
He had been so charming, so confident. For three weeks they had been inseparable. That should have been the end of it, only it wasn’t. Liz had been careless. When had she not been? The entire course of her life was marked by reckless impulses. She remembered how he had led her round the city and doors fell open before them. She liked that. As if she was somebody, as if they were important. They walked into a crowded café or restaurant and a table would be cleared for them in an instant. People bobbed their heads in respect. He had drugs too, in easy supply, and in those days that was something to consider. It wasn’t meant to last. That was five years ago. It wasn’t meant to change her life, but it did.
When she got back to England and discovered she was pregnant, Liz had straightened herself out for the first time in years. No booze, no smack. Clean living. She had seen enough horrors – children born without fingers – to know that she didn’t want to run the risk. It didn’t last, but it was something. A start, proof that she could do it if she wanted to. Alice was the best thing that had happened to her. Liz knew that it was worth it, that despite the difficulties of taking care of a small child – the tantrums, the constant demands – despite all of that, Alice made her mother want to be a better person. But she couldn’t manage it in London. Too many temptations, too many open doors. Then it came to her, like a window opening in the darkness. Cairo. A new life. Why not? ‘Any time you need anything, Liz, you come to me,’ he had told her.
All around her the little figures spun. Monkey kings and gods shaped like dogs, baboons, crocodiles and birds, all carved from green stone, or obsidian. A window stuffed with jewellery, silver crosses – ankh, the symbol of life. Miniature pyramids; some so big you couldn’t lift them with both hands and others small enough to dangle from your ears. Turquoise scarabs. A window full of chessboards. Silvery blue mother-of-pearl, shooting arrows of sparkling light. A mad funfair.
‘Alice!’
Liz rushed on, her mind reeling. She turned, crashing into the arms of a woman balancing a tower of tin jugs on her head. Liz wheeled round. Nothing was as she recalled it. The streets, the noise, the leering men. It felt like a different country. Had she been so blind five years ago? So off her head that it didn’t register? The bazaar she had recalled as an Aladdin’s cave of glittering wonders. Now all she saw was row after row of cheap trinkets, clumsily fashioned artefacts designed to seduce the eye. To dupe rather than to satisfy the soul. The place made her sick, literally. At first she’d thought she must have eaten something that disagreed with her because she’d spent the first night crouched over the toilet bowl. Only it wasn’t the food, of course, it was the drugs, or lack of them. Withdrawal symptoms. This was the first time she had really been clean since Alice was born. She’d lain in bed, feverish and weak but determined to carry on, the child tugging at her arm.
The only kindness she’d experienced here was in the warm reception given to her little girl. It was as if they recognised something in her, as if they knew Alice belonged here. Everywhere they went people smiled at the little golden-haired girl. Women, old and young, clucked and pinched her cheeks, tugged her pigtails. Men made swooping motions with their hands like birds darting around her head, making her squeal with delight. She was something of a novelty. Those were the moments when Liz had told herself everything was going to be all right. But there were other moments: when anxiety made her pace the room sleeplessly, scratching her arms, clawing at her throat, struggling to breathe in the oppressive air as the wail of yet another call to prayer echoed over the square. Moments when she thought her mission hopeless. She would never find him, or even if she did, what then? Liz was beginnin
g to get the feeling that there was a limit to how long she could keep this up. Alice was impatient with her. As if she sensed her mother was out on a limb. Always asking questions, refusing to move, asking to be carried, clinging to her, dragging her down like a dead weight.
Then, yesterday afternoon, a man had walked straight up to Liz. No hesitation. Had he been following her? ‘I help you.’ He led her to a narrow doorway opening into a shadowy interior. Narrow darts of light cut through slits set high in the walls, bouncing off the polished brass and tarnished mirrors. The place was deserted but for a man sitting against the far wall. His thick, lumpy features put her in mind of a bullfrog she had once dissected in the school biology lab years ago. His eyes were like hard black rivets, almost lost in the swollen face. His hair was smoothed straight back with scented oil. His whole body gave off an aromatic air, like an ancient eastern king. On the table in front of him stood a heap of tangerines on a huge round tray of beaten bronze, like the disc of Ra the Sun God as it travels westwards across the sky.
It couldn’t have been that big a place, but to her mind the distance between the door and the far corner where he sat, waiting, stretched before her into infinity, as if she was shrinking and the room growing longer even as she walked. There was movement flitting through the shadows behind him. A couple of louts hung round by a counter on the left. Nasty-looking, but Liz knew the type and wasn’t particularly afraid. She caught sight of herself in the mirror above his head, and despite the dim light could see that she looked terrible. Her hair was lank and lifeless, her face filmed with sweat and the sooty grime of the streets, which turned the towels in her hotel room black every night. Her eyes were ringed with red and swollen like eggs. He gestured for her to sit and so she did. Alice pressed herself to her side. The man’s ugly face creased in a smile that made her blood churn.
‘Hello, little girl,’ he said in English, stretching out a hand towards her daughter, fingers like plump dates. Alice shied away, pulling back, pressing herself in towards her mother. The smile waned. The fingers withdrew. The black eyes turned to Liz.
‘Tell me, why do you want to find this man so badly?’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Yes, of course. He is . . . an associate.’
His English was not bad. In itself, this was not surprising. Everyone in the Khan al-Khalili had at least one foreign language. It was a veritable Tower of Babel.
‘Associate?’ Liz repeated, thinking it an odd word to use. ‘Where can I find him?’
‘He works for me. Or rather, he used to. Now he has . . . gone into business for himself.’
He bared his teeth in what might otherwise have been a smile and Liz felt a cold shiver run through her. Holding her gaze as the smile faded, he plucked a tangerine from the pile in front of him and handed it to the child. As she began to eat, sucking the little lobes of fruit contentedly, Liz felt uncomfortable that her daughter could so easily trust a stranger they had only just met.
‘This is not your first time in Egypt?’
Liz shook her head, feeling his eyes scrutinise her, lingering on her fingernails, bitten to the quick. The raw hunger in her stare, the desperation she was unable to hide. She was reaching the end of her meagre funds. Her patience was running out. She was climbing the walls. And then there was Alice, with her constant demands for attention, for reassurances that Liz couldn’t give her. The only thing that would make sense of any of this was finding him. She didn’t care who helped her find him, so long as somebody did. The dark, sunken eyes met hers.
‘Is he the father of this child?’
Liz hesitated, sensing that any information she gave this man would place her further in his power, but she had no choice. If she wanted to enlist his help, she had to trust him. She nodded.
‘Ah.’ He sat back. ‘Then she is a valuable child indeed.’
‘Valuable?’ Liz placed an arm protectively around Alice’s shoulders. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t trust me,’ he smiled. It wasn’t a question, and she detected the steel underlying his voice.
‘I don’t know you.’ She didn’t want to offend him, but by now Liz could hardly breathe. She was beginning to sense that this had been a big mistake.
‘What is there to know? I am a man of simple tastes. Ask anyone.’ He reached for another tangerine and broke it into segments. She watched him, helpless to stop him feeding her child; wanting, more than anything, to leave, but finding herself unable to.
‘What is it you really came for?’ The deep-set eyes flickered upward, catching her off balance. ‘If you need money, all you have to do is tell me.’ Again the toothy grin. ‘People come to me all the time because they know I will help them.’
‘It’s not money.’
‘No? Something else then?’
Without warning he seized her wrist and held it firmly, almost without effort. She struggled to pull back, but couldn’t move. With ease he tugged up the long sleeve of her blouse, past the elbow. Relentless eyes searched for the telltale tracks. She wriggled helplessly. When he was satisfied, he let go. Liz pulled her arm back, massaging her painful wrist. A segment of tangerine fell from Alice’s mouth as she watched in silence, eyes wide. She crawled on to her mother’s lap.
‘You have no right . . .’ Liz began, struggling to control her voice. It was futile, but he tilted his head understandingly.
‘This is Cairo. Everyone’s business is common knowledge.’ He gestured with a wide sweep of the hand that encompassed their entire surroundings. It was true. Life was lived on the streets here. Hadn’t she once admired the carved wooden mashrabiyya screens over the old windows, and wondered at the veils covering the faces of some of the women on the street, feeling their eyes sear through her flimsy clothes like hot pokers? She understood now this obsession with secrecy, the value of preserving a private space.
‘She’s my daughter,’ Liz whispered hoarsely.
‘But of course.’
‘I want the best for her.’
‘That’s only natural.’ He inclined his head.
Then Liz had managed to make her excuses, pull Alice into her arms and flee. Later that evening there was a knock at the door of the hotel room. It was late; she had been dozing, and rose from the bed half asleep. She opened the door a crack to peer round it. In the hallway stood a young boy, no more than twelve years old. He had a keen intelligent gaze despite his grimy appearance and an ear that was swollen and misshapen. They stared at one another for what felt like hours but was really only a matter of seconds.
‘Yes? What do you want?’ asked Liz.
Without a word he thrust forward an envelope. It was thick and heavy and she turned it over in her hands. There was nothing written on it. No name or address. Nothing. When she looked up the boy was gone.
Alice slept on blissfully, her damp hair stuck to her forehead with perspiration. Liz sat on the bed and opened the envelope. Inside was a bundle of banknotes. Dollars. A lot of them. So many she couldn’t count. She rifled through quickly – fifties, hundreds, tens, twenties, no sense of order to them at all. And there was something else, something that shifted around at the bottom of the envelope. Throwing the money on to the bed, she tipped the rest of the contents out into her hand. A simple twist of paper. Liz stared at it. She knew what it was. She could feel her heart start to beat. It was fear, excitement, or both mixed up together, that coursed through her veins then. She knew what this was. It was what she had come here to get away from. Or had she really? Her first instinct was to throw it away. Don’t even think about it, Liz. Just flush it down the toilet. And with that intention she got up and headed for the bathroom. She locked the door behind her and leaned against it, the wrap clenched between her fingers. All she had to do was take it one day at a time . . . But she was tired. Tired of the pain in her limbs, the dull ache behind her eyes. Tired of sleeplessness and weariness.
Lowering the toilet cover, she sat down and unfolded the wrap. She stared at the contents, f
eeling her pulse accelerate. She dipped in a finger and touched it to her tongue. Still there was a moment’s hesitation, in which she saw the road to ruin laid out before her in that single brown thread tapering across her hand. Then the despair rolled back over her like a thick carpet of cloud blotting out the sun, and there was no alternative. Kneeling on the floor, she tipped the heroin on to the seat cover and used the edge of the paper to divide it into narrow lines. She rolled the wrap into a tight tube, pushed it into her left nostril and leaned over. It was like sinking into a warm bath. She felt weightless and free, sliding back to the floor and slumping against the wall. Time stopped. Someone cut the safety line and she watched the blue world floating off into the dark void.
When she opened her eyes she realised it was light outside. Her head felt fuzzy and unclear. She struggled to her feet, her eyes going to the empty wrap on the floor beside her. She threw it aside as she wrestled with the door latch. The first thing she noticed was the money lying on the bed where she had left it. The second thing was that Alice was nowhere to be seen.
She checked the windows, the wardrobe, under the bed. Each option offered a fleeting, absurd ray of hope before the inevitable realisation. Then she was running. Along hallways, down stairwells, through the narrow arteries of the bazaar. She ran in disbelief, in shock, numbed, crying the name of her child. Alice. She walked until she was ready to drop. She was lost herself by then, delirious, finding herself reflected back in pieces, divided into strips by shards of mirrored glass, slivers of shiny metal. The men hanging around, leaning in doorways, called out as she went by, again and again, like a game.
‘Hello, welcome!’